Anton's Pasta Bar

Last week we decided to go to the Hastings area, because it was an area we haven't explored that much. Originally, we had wanted to have lunch at Bombay Bhel, but it happened to be closed for lunch that day. So we headed next door to Anton's. We'd never been to Anton's before, but have heard lots about it--namely their extremely large portions and longer line ups.

The place was full, but we didn't have to line up at all. The atmosphere is minimal, but friendly. There were lots of families and young couples. Even though the place was pretty full, the service was quick and warm.

I ordered the Linguine Alla Siciliana ($10.99), which was linguine and anchovies, red peppers, capers and olives in a tomato sauce (similar to a puttanesca sauce, I think). This was great--I love the saltiness and briny quality of the sauce, and the noodles were fresh and slightly chewy. I wasn't expecting to find homemade pasta here, so this was quite a surprise. There wasn't too much sauce, but there was enough to coat each noodle. I liked it a lot.

Shane had the Linguine alla Cabonara ($10.99), with pancetta, egg and cream sauce. It's actually one of my favorite dishes, but I couldn't stomach ordering a whole bowl of it myself. I did have an extensive tasting of Shane's dish though. Obviously, it's very rich, and good. My only criticism is that it could have used a tad more salt, but Shane was okay with it.

Even though we got only the lunch portion (the dinner portion is $14.99), both of us managed to eat only half of the bowl. It's very filling.

I was surprised at how much we liked Aton's. I was expecting some cheap, out of the box pasta, but the dishes were surprisingly well done. We would definitely come back here, especially to try out the dinner portions.